There’s bad news, and at least locally, some not so bad news.

The ‘Real’ Jobless Rate: 17.5% Of Workers Are Unemployed

As experts debate the potential speed of the US recovery, one figure looms large but is often overlooked: nearly 1 in 5 Americans is either out of work or under-employed.

According to the government’s broadest measure of unemployment, some 17.5 percent are either without a job entirely or underemployed. The so-called U-6 number is at the highest rate since becoming an official labor statistic in 1994.

The number dwarfs the statistic most people pay attention to—the U-3 rate—which most recently showed unemployment at 10.2 percent for October, the highest it has been since June 1983.

One wonders how the alleged bail-out is working economic wonders, just the Change that The One promised that we can believe in.

Instead, it’s turned into “Change – Believe it or Not”…would you believe not, except change for the worse.

As far as the better news goes, recently the Chief saw a map on TV with different colors indicating the levels of states’ unemployment: South Dakota, North Dakota, and Nebraska all were the same color, which represented the lowest unemployment rates in the country.  We’re (still) a long way from Detroit (so far).